- Oh, it pains me that due to high travel costs and other scheduling conflicts, I’m unable to attend this year’s inaugural World Toilet Association conference, currently going on in South Korea. If there’s one thing I can’t get enough of, it’s discussion of sanitation issues. It just isn’t a party if you’re not talking toilets, bath tubs and plumbing fixtures. The WTA believes that bathrooms and sanitation have gotten a bad rap (gee, I wonder why) and hope to dispel what they see and bathroom myths as well as help save lives through better sanitation as a result of their gathering. On a serious note, I do applaud those who are making a point to attend, including government delegates and U.N. representatives, all of them focused on finding ways to improve restroom facilities worldwide for the 2.6 billion people (more than a third of the world’s total population) who lack access to proper bathroom facilities. Now, if you all solve those problems and still have some time left over, how’s about finding ways to improve the stench in portable toilets and raising the dividers between urinals in men’s restrooms worldwide to increase the privacy and separation just a bit…..
- Open up, Danes, because the rest of the European Union is ready to attempt to ram the euro down your throats one more time. Several times before, Danish citizens have rejected the offer to adopt the euro as their national currency, but despite their prior rejections, they’re being “offered” another chance to accept it. In the early 1990s, as most of Europe was moving toward a universal currency, the Danes decided to keep their own currency. In 2000, a referendum offered Danes the chance to change their minds, but once again the measure was defeated handily. Now, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a strong pro-EU advocate, wants voters to revisit the issue, clearly forgetting or simply choosing to be blissfully ignorant of the fact that not once but twice these people have said no to the euro as well as coalescing to the EU’s unified defense policies and law enforcement. Maybe, just maybe, the Danes want to retain their autonomy and individuality and not capitulate to the wishes of the rest of Europe. Thus, I’m throwing my weight firmly against this referendum and Prime Minister Rasmussen. Leave the Danes alone, let them have their independence and individuality!
- Think for a minute about your most valuable possession. Maybe it’s your computer, maybe it’s an expensive camera, a piece of jewelry, your plasma HDTV, whatever. Just imagine that item, then try to imagine circumstances under which you would leave that item unattended in the back seat of your car in a normal public parking lot, the doors to your car unlocked. Wouldn’t happen, right? Well someone should have told that to Nicholas Orbovich, because while dude might be a concert-level violinist with the South Bend (Ind.) Symphony Orchestra, dude is clearly not very smart in matters non-musical. Orbovich left his prized violin, made in 1892 and worth $100,000, in the back seat of his car earlier this week and when he returned five minutes later, the instrument was gone. “I’m devastated,” he lamented. “It’s like losing an immediate family member.” Sorry for your loss, Nick, I really am, but if you’re so dumb that you leave something that valuable sitting in your car in plain sight, WITH THE DOORS UNLOCKED, then maybe you deserved to lose it. Too often, stupid is the one crime that goes unpunished. If I own a $100,000 violin and I have to go somewhere with it, it’s going to be in my possession at all times and probably chained to my person. If I’m at the laundromat doing a load of light-colored clothes, that violin is in one hand, laundry in the other. If I’m at the store trying on jeans, I use my right hand to hold the violin, the left hand to try on the jeans. But hey, don’t worry, I’m sure that whoever stole your violin really appreciates it – or at least they did until they sold it for $1,000 at the nearest pawn shop. Lock your freaking car doors, moron.
- The results of the strike by TV writers are already showing through if you look at the schedule for the coming week. Rather than continue reruns of recent shows, The Tonight Show has made the ever-trendy decision to go retro, airing the first appearances of celebrities like Matt Damon, Jennifer Aniston and Johnny Depp on the show. Jay Leno gets the added bonus of looking younger for a week, the show doesn’t have to put out extra effort and no one really watches, it’s a win-win-win. Meanwhile, CBS, you lost me at Ricky Martin. The network is airing a special on Friday called Night at the Grammys, theoretically featuring some of the most “legendary” performances in the history of the show. However, the instant I saw a commercial for this program and saw Ricky Martin’s ugly mug, with his frosted lettuce and lip-syncing act, I knew that either Night at the Grammys was some sort of practical joke or it was a hideously awful show I didn’t need to see. Seriously, no musical program of any kind that features former man-banders like Ricky Martin and his lame-ass act can be legendary. One more TV note, going back to NBC for a minute: American Gladiators is coming back in January, and I for one am pumped. It’s been too long since we’ve seen games like Break Through and Conquer, Joust and The Eliminator. Who doesn’t love ‘roided-up gladiators with greasy mullets, female gladiators with disgustingly ripped physiques and competitors in those neon-colored spandex outfits? Bring it on, gladiators, bring it on…..
- Feel free to send me your leftovers, Rich and Andra Portnoy. The two siblings, clearly neither having much of a life and never having gotten over the super-competitive-with-sibling phase of life, have an annual contest to see which of them can cook the bigger Thanksgiving turkey. In a tradition nearly as dumb (not quite) at the president annually “pardoning” a turkey at the White House, these two attempt to one-up each other and this year, big brother Rich won by cooking a 72-pound turkey in his 36-inch wide, chef-quality oven to best his sister, who could only muster a 49-pound bird. Why these two are cooking ginormous turkeys at their respective homes instead of, I don’t know, spending Thanksgiving together, I don’t know. After all, Andra only lives in Reston, Va., not that far from her brother in Minnesota, so it’s not like they’re living on opposite sides of the country. At least Rich and his wife invited 26 people to their home for Thanksgiving, so most of the turkey probably got eaten. Still, any leftovers can be FedEx-ed to me at my home, as long as it’s white meat, no dark meat please….
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